 Distinguished participants for this conference all invited guests ladies and gentlemen good morning to you all and to our visitors from abroad I welcome you very warmly to Ghana I'm very pleased to be invited to open this international conference on migration and mobility new frontiers for research and policy organized jointly by UNU Wireda and Arua as a politician who used to be an academic and research it's always nice to to be invited to to these events organized by academics it provides one an escape route from the heavy political arena that we one finds oneself sometimes so it is really great to be here as a policymaker I really value research yes yesterday I was presenting a paper at the University of Cape Coast and the topic was on building stronger economies in Africa and what was the missing link and and so we discussed in this paper you know the whole issue of how countries operate within well within their production possibility frontiers and some of the factors which would get countries to move towards and and hopefully be able to even move those production possibilities frontiers and one of the issues that we addressed in this particular paper was the issue of exclusion when people are excluded in in in the production process in the process of participating in the economy then those economies cannot really move forward and as I have been sitting here this morning and reflecting on this whole issue of migration and mobility you would also see I think no doubt that people who feel excluded one way or the other either to education or infrastructure or health care in particular communities are more likely to also move out of those communities whether it's south south or south north and migration ladies and gentlemen and mobility are major human development issues and increasingly are key facets of our increasingly globalized world it is therefore not surprising that these issues are high on the global agenda high on the African agenda and high on the Ghanaian agenda the first national migration policy of Ghana aimed at providing a framework to manage migration for sustainable development was released in 2016 the nice I'm sure everyone is aware that we are continuously monitoring the need for effective policies in this area the program for this conference speaks to many of our key concerns internal migration urbanization internally displaced persons irregular migration and migrant smuggling labor migration return readmission and reintegration of immigrants border management refugees and asylum seekers amongst others we hear a lot on the international stage about South North migration my understanding is that over the next two days you will focus in particular on South South movements which are larger and perhaps more significant in terms of numbers of people involved by the diverse nature of participants at this conference we will hear experiences drawn from many different countries and regions from Asia to Latin America as well as Europe and North America and especially Africa there is a great deal to learn in such international collaboration and research exchange it is most appropriate that this conference is held here at the University of Ghana and at ESSE the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research a number of researchers at this university at ESSE and at the Center for Migration Studies and Beyond have been engaged on with issues of migration and national development I am pleased to see many of these researchers collaborating in this conference as panel conveners speakers and participants it is also appropriate and that this conference is jointly organized by UNU wider and African Research University's allies Arua both of which have deep connections at the University of Ghana and indeed here at ESSE Arua is a young organization inaugurated just two years ago in Dakar but it brings together 15 of Africa's leading universities with a mandate to develop local research excellence through collaboration to find solutions to the development problems of Africa this is a mandate I proudly and enthusiastically endorse and it is a mandate that is reflected in the agenda for this conference UNU wider has for 30 plus years exercised research leadership on issues of equitable development and structural transformation this conference clearly demonstrates UNU wider's strength in bringing together researchers and policymakers from across the world to share experiences of what works and what can be done better before assuming my current office I contributed to a study to one of UNU wider's projects on recent Ghanian on the recent Ghanian experience with oil discovery and macroeconomic management so I'm happy to welcome the UNU wider staff here in Accra Ghana is a strong believer in the values of the United Nations and as an institution of the United Nations University UNU wider exemplifies success in mobilizing research and promoting dialogue to bring fresh ideas to the policy table thank you to Arua thank you to UNU wider and thank you all for coming to Accra I look forward very much to the outcome of your deliberations over the next two days thank you for your attention